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What strangest working antenna you've had?

Angie

Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2025
Messages
17
City & State/Province
N. AL
1888 S Jackson antenna diagram 50.webp


When living on the 6th floor, we were unable to have an antenna. However, a long roll of 32-gauge copper wire, 2-foot square pieces of aluminum foil, tape, an insulator, and a bit of rope can be used to create a usable antenna.

Connect the transceiver to the Johnson KW Match box. Connect a short piece of copper wire from the matchbox to the aluminum foil that is taped to the stationary sliding glass door. Roll the wire into a coil at one corner and secure it with tape. Mirror the foil on the outside of the window and connect the roll of copper wire to the corner of that piece of foil. Put an insultor (of some type) on the balcony railing and put the wire over it.

Have someone go to the street level and lower the roll of wire to them, and they climb the tree across the street. Connect the wire to the insulator and then the insulator to the rope, and tie off to a limb.

When done, it can be tuned well enough for the USA and some DX. And no one sees it unless they are looking for it. Also, we never heard of anyone complaining about a strange signal mess-up on TVs or Regular radios around us.
 
Sounds like a great stealth antenna!

This one was not so stealth. I decided to build a 10m cubical quad and install it on a mast on the back of my Festiva. It didn't last very long, turned out to be rather impractical.

2003-CubicalQuad_10m-002.webp

2003-CubicalQuad_10m-003.webp

2003-Cubical_Quad_Antenna-2.webp
 
That's an amazing antenna. I can see how it would not last long with traffic and the wind blowing against it. The shape of it make me think some small led lights on it would make a great mobile Christmas tree.
 
It's great that you did it. Of course, it's bigger than the car. I'll have to send a link to this thread to a couple of young ham friends. They actually do antennas, and would get a kick out of seeing this "mobile" antenna.
 
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